It looks like our old friend Giorgio Tsoukalos has gone on tour again, racking up cash payments to spout predigested catchphrases from Ancient Aliens and perhaps also deliver his standard PowerPoint presentation. Tsoukalos is set to appear tonight at the Hamburg Music Festival in Buffalo, New York, where audiences will pay $35 apiece to listen to him discuss ambiguous evidence for space aliens in what is billed as “a mind-bending, brain busting evening of deep space mystery and Ancient Astronaut exploration.” I’m sure that the promotional team didn’t mean the accidental honesty of admitting that listening to Tsoukalos will cause one’s brain to break down, but we’ll spot them the gaffe.

In anticipation of tonight’s performance, Tsoukalos gave an interview to Buffalo’s Artvoice newspaper in which he discussed the ancient astronaut theory, in almost exactly the same words he always uses. He uses so many of them, in fact, that it’s kind of boring to read Tsoukalos’s interviews. It’s also bizarre that Tsoukalos still describes himself as the editor and publisher of Legendary Times, a magazine that isn’t publicly available and whose website lists no current issue, with the back issues ending in 2008. I had looked into this in 2011, when the latest issue I could find was from 2009. That one disappeared now, too. That’s not to say that Tsoukalos’s fan club members don’t still get their Legendary Times newsletter (I have no way of knowing), but that it’s hardly the credential he pretends it to be.

There were a few new tidbits that were interesting, particularly given Tsoukalos’s propensity to pretend to be things he is not. Listen to Tsoukalos describe his research methods: “I am referencing the works of highly intelligent, knowledgeable academics,” he said. How might that be? Tsoukalos has written no books, produced virtually no articles aside from the forewords to a handful of ancient astronaut tomes, and has virtually no web presence. His entire intellectual output is largely confined to pronouncements on Ancient Aliens, which he has admitted in past interviews come from research provided to him by the show’s producers and Google searches. It’s also obvious from his pattern of repeating Erich von Däniken’s errors that a not-insignificant number of his claims are repeated almost verbatim from his mentor von Däniken’s many books.

Here’s how Artvoice tried to explain the ancient astronaut theory, from a suggestion by Tsoukalos: “Think about how you would explain the internet to someone from the 1800s. An all omniscient entity that is everywhere and nowhere and the same time? Sound familiar? That’s because it sounds like a god or some sort of magic.” Leave aside the redundancy of “all omniscient.” I’m pretty sure a Victorian, possessed of telegraph and telephone, could understand the concept of sending a message electronically. The fax machine was invented in 1843. This failure of research speaks to a larger problem: Fringe writers routinely imagine people of the past, even the recent past, as being extraordinarily stupid. Frankly, the idea that people of the past could not imagine the idea of going to a screen to get any information in the world is just silly. Here is theAkhbar al-zaman from around 1000 CE imagining just such a science-fiction device as the iPad with Wi-Fi: “He (Surid) built a mirror of a compound substance in which he saw the climates of the world with their inhabited parts and deserted parts and everything that happened in them” (2.2, my trans.). Allowing for translation differences in the editions used to render it into English, the tale is given from the same source in Murtada ibn al-‘Afif’s History of Egypt: “He caused to be made a Mirrour of all sorts of Minerals, wherein they saw all the Climats, where there was abundance of Provisions or Sterility, and what new accident happen’d in any of the Coasts of Egypt” (trans. John Davies). The same story is repeated nearly verbatim in Al-Maqrizi’s Al-Khitat: “He made wonderful things; among which was a mirror of mixed metal, in which he would observe the countries, and know in it the occurrences that happened, and what was abundant in them, and what was scarce” (trans. In the Quarterly Review, 1859). Given that such texts have been circulating for a thousand years, it’s hard to imagine that the ancients, medievals, or moderns were incapable of imagining the internet. To think otherwise suggests a bias that informs much of the ancient astronaut “research.”

Anyway, the most interesting thing in the interview was the final discussion in which Tsoukalos more or less conceded that his investigation into aliens isn’t really about finding space creatures. After all, if he were really on the trail of aliens—the greatest discovery in human history—wouldn’t you think he and his fellow “ancient astronaut theorists” would be doing more than merely visiting tourist destinations and spouting nonsense into cameras? Wouldn’t they be trying to do more if they thought that they really knew how to reach out to benevolent space gods? No matter. The real purpose is political, to create a myth that will serve human ends:

I think it allows you to view yourself as a citizen of this planet instead of just one particular country or culture. In the end, what we as a global society seem to have forgotten is that we’re on this blue dot together. For the moment, there is nowhere else to go. I think exploring the extraterrestrial question can lead to many positive changes and ideas to many of the problems and issues we presently face. It’s cooperation, not competition.

​Far be it from me to point out that his vision directly mirrors his own experience, specifically as a Greek man raised in Switzerland and educated in the United States, and as a self-described political liberal who makes money from American, Latin American, and Asian marketing of his kumbaya prescription for alien-induced globalism. I might also point out that his mentor, Erich von Däniken, did not benefit as much from globalization in the 1970s, when the international media attacked him as a fraud and convicted embezzler, and the restrictive organs of commerce of the time robbed him of massive royalty payments (which went instead to his German publisher. Von Däniken instead saw the ancient astronaut theory as a political weapon to promote a specific political philosophy, his own arch-conservatism, in order to oppose socialism and forestall cooperation with conservatives’ socialist enemies.

We see, in other words, that the pseudoscience is just another vehicle for the individual’s ideology and agenda, largely divorced from the notion of facts.

In one sense I respect Giorgio. He's making good money literally doing nothing. He doesn't do any research. He doesn't write any books. He's paid to travel the world simply stating what AA researches have given him as facts. All he has to do is make it sound like he knows what he's talking about. Well, that and manage his monumental quaff, but I'm sure that's done for him to because it doesn't appear he's capable of doing anything by himself.

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Joe Scales

11/4/2016 01:35:45 pm

The Fringe has a few layers. On the top you have the pure charlatans, who may even be clever, who bilk the market as an industry. Below them, you have well publicized and/or televised individuals, who although may believe in what they're doing, lack the intellect to even understand why they're not credible. Then there are the bottom-feeders. The truly unfortunate who buy books, pollute blogs and promote ideals out of pure ignorance as if they've latched onto something beyond us all. They're the ones who make it all work.

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Time Machine

11/4/2016 01:45:12 pm

The word is gullibility.

Kathleen

11/4/2016 01:19:46 pm

"we as a global society ". Oh good grief, now he's throwing New World Order into the mix. Whole new set of conspiracy theorists for his fans base. The Vatican,Templars, Freemasons, Bankers, Reptilians....

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Time Machine

11/4/2016 01:42:47 pm

The Vatican, I hasten to add, is the most successful New World Order of all time.

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David Bradbury

11/4/2016 03:15:22 pm

How are you defining "successful"? By almost any definition you choose, the Vatican doesn't top the chart.

Time Machine

11/4/2016 03:44:54 pm

The Son of Man in the Book of Daniel is the embryo of what developed into Christianity,

You cannot be born without having a Baptism certificate
A baptism is process all babies are required to undertake.
A baptism is required, I believe, to rubber stamp a Christian name.
Note the title - A Christian Name.

Christianity is the most successful New World Order,

An Over-Educated Grunt

11/4/2016 03:55:50 pm

Once more, you conflate "Christian" and "Catholic." At literally no point in church history was the primacy of Rome uncontested, either due to the other Pentarchy patriarchs, the Reformation, or relatively small side branches of Christianity that you hand-save while simultaneously claiming to know True Church History.

But then, since Baptists are Protestant Christians who believe in adult baptism, even your "Christian name" comment is off the mark.

Time Machine

11/4/2016 04:03:52 pm

Oh yeah - the producing of a baptism certificate is mandatory in some job applications in the UK - a non-Catholic country.

Baptism is not confined to Roman Catholicism, but all Christian denominations developed from Roman Catholicism,

Time Machine

11/4/2016 04:10:29 pm

Incidentally, the Pope has a much higher profile in UK News Bulletins than the Archbishop of Canterbury, the primate of the Church of England.

And despite being completely meaningless, the doctrine of the Roman Catholic church towards birth control, abortion, divorce, second marriages, DNA and foetal experiments, LGBT issues, military conflicts, is still high profile on News Bulletins around the world today in 2016.

An Over-Educated Grunt

11/4/2016 04:18:38 pm

... Because anecdotal evidence about hiring procedures or news bulletins in a third-rate power is clearly evidence of a worldwide conspiracy.

Also, I'm sure the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople would be surprised to hear that Orthodox Christianity is Roman Catholic in origin. As would the Nestorians, the Copts, the Ethiopian Christians... but who am I to let facts get in the way of a fine anti-Catholic rant?

No, you hand-waved it and I didn't press. In retrospect I should have.

Tell me, which city was larger in 1100, Rome or Constantinople? You're the one who keeps claiming to know early church history so well. Hell, let's move forward to the twentieth century. Was it to the Pope or the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church that Stalin appealed? You claim that anything other than Catholic doesn't count, but history does not bear that out. Even within church history, the Great Schism didn't happen until notably after the midpoint between Christ's death and now - meaning, as I said, that the Patriarchs of Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria had theoretically equal standing, and Constantinople substantially equal standing, with Rome. Of those, Antioch, Jerusaelem, and Alexandria predate the Bishop of Rome; we have Pauline letters concerning them after all. So tell me again how Roman Catholicism is the oldest, and the fountain of Christianity? Have you even looked at a map to figure out where all those early church councils you live to bring up as defining the New Testament were held? I'll give you a clue - close to the seat of imperial power, Constantinople. Not Rome.

So go on. Tell me how flat that angle is, while you're telling me how important baptism certificates are for hiring in a country that's supposed to guarantee freedom of worship.

Time Machine

11/4/2016 05:09:29 pm

OKAY !!!

TELL ME CHRISTIANITY IS NOT THE MOST SUCCESSFUL NEW WORLD ORDER IN HISTORICAL EXISTENCE - YOUR NAME HAS TO BE RUBBER STAMPED BY THAT.

THE VATICAN AND ROMAN CATHOLICISM IS THE BIGGEST PROFILE OF CHRISTIANITY - EVEN AFTER THE DEVELOPMENT OF THOUSANDS OF DIFFERENT OFFSHOOT DENOMINATIONS, OF WHICH PROTESTANTISM IS THE LARGEST,

THE VATICAN VERSION AND ROMAN CATHOLIC VERSION OF CHRISTIANITY HAS TO BE MENTIONED BECAUSE DESPITE THE DESTRUCTION OF IT THROUGH SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE AND THE RISE OF SECULARISM, IT IS THE HIGHEST PROFILE VERSION OF CHRISTIANITY.

IT IS, THEREFORE, THE WORLD'S MOST SUCCESSFUL NEW WORLD ORDER, ULTIMATELY SPRINGING FROM A MYSTICAL RELIGIOUS CONCEPT AND NOT FROM A HISTORICAL BEING (THAT WAS A LATER CREATION).

HISTORY BOOKS TELL US THAT THE VATICAN VERSION OF ROMAN CATHOLICISM IS NO EARLIER OR OLDER THAN THOSE PIFFLING VERSIONS OF CHRISTIANITY THAT YOU MENTION - AND IT DOES NOT AFFECT THE STATEMENT THAT ROMAN CATHOLICISM IS THE MOST SUCCESSFUL NEW WORLD ORDER IN EXISTENCE.

Time Machine

11/4/2016 05:14:07 pm

CHRISTIANITY PREDATES THE PAULINE LETTERS

CHRISTIANITY IS FOUND THROUGHOUT THE PAGES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

THE SON OF MAN IN THE BOOK OF DANIEL IS THE EMBRYO OF WHAT EVENTUALLY BECAME JESUS CHRIST, BY WAY OF THE BOOK OF ENOCH. THIS IS WHY THE BOOK OF ENOCH WAS CONSIDERED CANONICAL IN THE BOOK OF JUDE.

THE SECOND BOOK OF ENOCH, OR THE BOOK OF THE SECRETS OF ENOCH, IS ANOTHER EVOLUTIONARY PROCESS THAT CREATED THE CONCEPT OF JESUS CHRIST.

Hans Boersma, Scripture as Real Presence: Sacramental Exegesis in the Early Church (Baker Academic, 2017)

"This work argues that the heart of patristic exegesis is the attempt to find the sacramental reality (real presence) of Christ in the Old Testament Scriptures. Leading theologian Hans Boersma discusses numerous sermons and commentaries of the church fathers to show how they regarded Christ as the treasure hidden in the field of the Old Testament and explains that the church today can and should retrieve the sacramental reading of the early church. Combining detailed scholarly insight with clear, compelling prose, this book makes a unique contribution to contemporary interest in theological interpretation."

Funny, after demonstrating successfully that Christianity is not and has not been monolithic since its foundation, you appeal to the supposed hiring practice of a non-Catholic country because obviously children ARE their parents, then you yell about how only Catholicism matters because of numbers. You have yet to prove or even present credible evidence that Catholicism is a New World Order. You'd have been better off claiming the Ummayad or Abbasid Caliphs, or the Mongols. But no, it's clearly the Catholics, who were crushed by the Enlightenment, except they're still the most powerful conspiracy in the world somehow too! And wait, Christianity is descended from Judaic Messianic texts! Because someone THAT'S both secret knowledge kept from us by "Bible scholars" and evidence of a Catholic conspiracy!

No, that would be apologists, not scholars. Go read some Bauer, some Price, some Ehrman, some Carrier, and the other scholars you'll discover through them. Then come back.

Time Machine

11/5/2016 02:53:37 am

Old Fashioned Grunt has a tawdry habit of highlighting unnecessary facts that have nothing in common with the salient points of arguments.

If someone happens to be discussing cookery, Old Fashioned Grunt will introduce bricklaying into the argument.

The Russian Orthodox Church of Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria, or Constantinople DO NOT HAVE ANYTHING TO DO with the fact that the Vatican is the most successful NEW WORLD ORDER pf them all. It is the highest profile version of Christianiy. News Bulletins do not give updates on other versions of Christianity like the Vatican version. News Bulletins do not give updates about the activities of the Latter Day Saints.

Not the Comte de Saint Germain

11/5/2016 02:59:08 am

Time Machine believes that the Jesus story wasn't inspired by a real person but was based directly on Old Testament prophecies about the messiah, which then got reworked as the story of a purportedly historical person. I think what Time Machine is trying to communicate here, though he's not very good at it, is that scholars recognize a connection between Jesus and Old Testament prophecies but don't interpret the connection correctly.

Time Machine

11/5/2016 03:02:40 am

>>>Go read some Bauer, some Price, some Ehrman, some Carrier<<<

Is that the Robert McNair Price who features on this blog from time to time in relation to the Necronomicon and who rejects the historical existence of Christ.

I am aware of those scholars.

Anyway, Biblical scholarship is apologetic in nature.
And Price and Carrier are rejected by mainstream scholars because they reject the historical existence of Jesus Christ.

As for Ehrman, he is completely without substance. He did not mention Tacitus' "Annals" was unknown before the 15th century in his recent book on the historical existence of Jesus Christ.

Time Machine

11/5/2016 03:08:36 am

>>>scholars recognize a connection between Jesus and Old Testament prophecies but don't interpret the connection correctly<<<

Not just Old Testament prophecies, but events. The events described in the Old Testament testify to the fact that knowledge of Christianity was known before the time of the Roman Occupation. There's the story of the Teacher of Righteousness dating from the period of the Seleucid (Greek) occupation of Judaea. That is a variant of what became Christianity.

Not the Comte de Saint Germain

11/5/2016 03:09:25 am

Time Machine and Over-Educated Grunt:

It's beyond dispute that the Catholic Church is the most powerful Christian organization. But when people talk about a New World Order, they mean one of two things. It can be a new era with a new balance of powers, like when the collapse of the Soviet Union moved us from a global competition between two superpowers to an era where the United States was the only superpower. Or it can mean a giant organization that manipulates and dominates the world. Grunt's point is that the Catholic Church was never powerful enough to dominate the world. Time Machine seems to be using "New World Order" to mean something else.

Time Machine

11/5/2016 03:15:19 am

I gave the example of baptism in relation to the Vatican being a New World Order.

It is now 2016 and Western Culture is primarily secular in nature. But baptism remains a basic requirement in life,

Time Machine

11/5/2016 10:10:29 am

The Glory that was Rome
509 BC - 1453

Weatherwax

11/5/2016 12:30:32 pm

Not the Comte de Saint Germain: "Time Machine believes that the Jesus story wasn't inspired by a real person but was based directly on Old Testament prophecies about the messiah, which then got reworked as the story of a purportedly historical person. I think what Time Machine is trying to communicate here, though he's not very good at it, is that scholars recognize a connection between Jesus and Old Testament prophecies but don't interpret the connection correctly."

I don't think even Time Machine knows or cares what he is trying to say or even believes. He only posts here to mess with people and piss them off, as he himself has said several times.

Not the Comte de Saint Germain

11/5/2016 02:09:16 pm

Perhaps, but a lot of his opinions have stayed consistent in the nearly three years he's been posting here (under various pseudonyms). He takes pride in having rejected Christianity and realizing that Jesus did not exist, but he's still racist, sexist, and (IIRC) homophobic.

Time Machine

11/5/2016 03:52:58 pm

>> racist,

Most of the world's countries cannot achieve the success of Western Europe, North America and Australasia. Such countries would like to do that, but they cannot overcome their limitations. They are assisted in basic needs by charities in affluent countries.

>> sexist,

men have penises and testicles and corresponding psychology. women have vaginas and wombs and have corresponding psychology.

>> homophobic.

You don't have to draw a diagram here to show that people are born from the union of two different sexes and that lesbians and homosexuals are dependant on such a union for their origin. Ergo: lesbianism and homosexuality is a biological imbalance similar to zoophilia

Time Machine

11/5/2016 04:04:21 pm

>> homophobic

The anus was devised to evacuate processed food. The anus is a repellent, not built to accommodate male genitalia or foreign objects.

Not the Comte de Saint Germain

11/5/2016 04:21:08 pm

Good of you to prove me right.

Time Machine

11/5/2016 04:26:33 pm

Good of you to be anti-common sense and pro-political correct

An Over-Educated Grunt

11/5/2016 05:46:26 pm

Ah yes. Good old Time Machine, who will never use one post when six will do, but says others waste words. Good old Time Machine, where imperialism never died and being a Little Englander means that something you heard down at your local about baptism certificates means that all those filthy Pakis and other immigrants who're stealing all the jobs must somehow have been baptized too! Good old Time Machine, where in one sentence it's perfectly reasonable to say that all branches of Christianity are descended from Catholicism, therefore all Christians are secretly Catholic, then in the other to claim that Christianity is derived from Judaism without making the obvious leap that by the very same logic, all Christians are Jews. Good old Time Machine, all of whose research is based off two thousand years of biblical scholarship and exegesis, but who claims everyone but him was wrong about everything!

I'm not even a practicing Christian, and have my own share of problems with a God who claims he loves everyone but sets them up for failure like some pissant petty tyrant middle manager, but I'm not blind to my own flaws. Must be hard not straining your shoulder patting your own back, buddy.

Time Machine

11/5/2016 05:49:06 pm

Old Fashioned Grunt is a caricature of Old Fashioned Grunt

Time Machine

11/5/2016 05:59:56 pm

>>>everyone but him was wrong about everything<<<

The writers of the Gospels conveyed the obvious meaning of Christianity (openly known about from the first century) depicted within historical fiction.

As long as the translation to every Bible remains untouched, and the wearing and display of the crucifix remains to last, the meaning of Christianity can be recovered.

Weatherwax

11/5/2016 07:35:21 pm

Christianity was a mixture of several mystery cults, both Jewish and non Jewish, and several dying and rising god cults and hero cults. There never was one Christian message. And the Gospels have been edited and redacted since day one.

Not the Comte de Saint Germain

11/5/2016 07:42:53 pm

The idea that Christianity was based on pagan mystery cults or dying and rising gods is largely rejected in academia today. The two just don't connect with each other directly enough. The background for the earliest form of Christianity was largely, though far from exclusively, Jewish. That's about the only point on which academia would agree with Time Machine.

Weatherwax

11/5/2016 07:53:29 pm

Well, again, a lot of that comes down to apologetics' desire for the history described in the bible to be true. Saying 'most academics' is not a very meaningful state about a field that is so large and has many different approaches. I tend to go with Dr Robert Price.

Time Machine

11/5/2016 08:25:12 pm

The New Testament is saturated within the Old Testament
The concept of Jesus Christ is found time and time again within the pages of the Old Testament

As for using Academia as a yardstick to measure information about all of this - don't make me laugh.

Academia has rejected the 19th century critical examination of the Bible by German theologians and replaced it with unverifiable crap that the Gospels date from the first century. Not only that, Academia attempts to harmonize contradictory accounts in the Gospels like the two irreconcilable Nativity stories of Jesus Christ.

Time Machine

11/5/2016 08:27:48 pm

>>> I tend to go with Dr Robert Price.<<<

He cannot provide an explanation for the origin (or definition) of Christianity. This element is lacking from all humanists, atheists, agnostics and secularists.

You can make a large list of them.

Weatherwax

11/5/2016 09:23:18 pm

"He cannot provide an explanation for the origin (or definition) of Christianity."

Neither can anyone else at this point. He can at least point towards likely beginnings based on the evidence that we have.

Saying 'You can't prove your case absolutely so what I want to believe is true must be the truth' is just meaningless twaddle.

Not the Comte de Saint Germain

11/5/2016 09:25:55 pm

Classical studies, which has a bearing on the question of pagan influence, is very far from being dominated by Christian apologists. Even in biblical studies there are a lot of Jews and nontheists, and nearly all of them agree that Jesus existed in some form.

And Time Machine: academic DON'T try to harmonize the nativity stories. If you'd actually read what I wrote several days ago, you'd know that nearly all academic (not theological) scholars of biblical history regard both nativity stories as fabrications.

Time Machine

11/6/2016 07:28:53 am

"balderdash from old books"

That's how academic Biblical scholars of the 20th and 21st century have dismissed the critical studies of the Bible of the 19th century that concluded there was nothing of historical value in the New Testament because it was culled from Old Testament and Pseudopigraphical sources.

As for the scholars who believe In a human Jesus Christ. They are worthless. Completely worthless. The story of a wonder worker doing miracles and rising from the dead is clearly made-up and contrived. Shame on anyone who takes such stuff seriously.

And if all those attributes were added following the death of a human being that makes it even more worthless. Except the human being in question did not exist in the first place because he was a creation of his religion. And all of the elements of that religion are found in the pages of the Old Testament - going back to the conclusions of 19th century Biblical scholarship that there was nothing new in the New Testament, all borrowed material from the Old Testament.

Going back to 20th century and 21st century Biblical scholars dismissing 19th century conclusions about the Bible as "balderdash from old books".

Time Machine

11/6/2016 07:34:14 am

Price takes the outdated dying-and-rising god theories of James G. Frazer seriously. There was even a YouTube presentation, since removed. Enough about Price's theories on Christian origins.

V

11/6/2016 01:44:11 pm

Just gonna say, the argument that "X is essential for life" can be disproven by a single example to the contrary; it's one of the few things that CAN actively be disproven by a single counter-example, because of the definition of the word "essential."

I am that example, honey. I don't have a "baptism record," nor have I EVER been baptized. I am not remotely Christian, never have been, and never will be. I have a "certificate of live birth," which is a medical certification that I was born, alive, at such and such a time and place, from such and such parents, and that this is attested to legally and under oath by such and such medical professionals. It has literally nothing whatever to do with baptism, does not resemble a baptismal certificate, did not grow out of baptismal reporting, is not remotely a Christian document, is strictly a secular document that exists to prove citizenship issues. I have never had ANY difficulty with my life from not having a record of being baptized (since I wasn't) at any time.

And yet, I live in the USA, where various forms of Christianity are among the strongest they are in the entire world, not somewhere like Japan, where Christianity is honestly something of a joke or an indulgence.

HOW successful were they supposed to be, again?

Not the Comte de Saint Germain

11/6/2016 02:29:25 pm

And what V said applies to me as well.

Time Machine

11/6/2016 02:31:01 pm

>>HOW successful were they supposed to be, again?<<

American Independence was not founded on Christian principles.

An Over-Educated Grunt

11/6/2016 02:50:46 pm

That goalpost moved so fast it red-shifted on the way out.

Time Machine

11/6/2016 03:06:16 pm

It was a factual statement

Historians have noted a similarity between the French Revolution and the implementation of its Laws and Statutes, and American Independence and its Bill of Rights.

Also, between the French Goddess that was intended to replace the Roman Catholic Church with the Statue of Liberty given to America by France.

Americanegro

11/12/2016 10:22:55 pm

Hey Time Machine, did you ever read the C.S. Lewis book The Stool, The Rope, And The Rafter? It's from his Locked Room And A Luger trilogy.

Kathleen

11/4/2016 03:56:30 pm

I really am curious to know if he is courting particular demographics. Besides the Kumbaya crowd, is he actively looking for more fringey folk? Or is he only concerned if they have $35 in their pocket?

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E.P. Grondine

11/5/2016 10:47:04 am

Hi Kathleen, Jason -

Giorgio was promoting von Daniken's hypothesis of ancient alien contact while it was not fashionable. Giorgio only found some success with his involvement with David Childress.

Most AA and Lost Civilisation proponents fail to honestly evaluate the authenticity and context of their sources.
What they appear to propose is a technology which is neither that of any recorded ancient or current civilisation but exists uncomfortably in between, a sort of cavemen with cannon past.
How they square this in the absence of a single first hand account by people fully able to describe in detail something which they may have seen working but without knowing how it was powered.
For instance, a mechanical digger is a mechanical digger in any age,
it has a shape and function and these are easily described without having the slightest concept of the underlying mechanism.
The ghost in the machine may not be apparent but the machine is.
So where are these accounts?

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Jean Stone

11/4/2016 04:39:12 pm

Very good points but you forget that AA/lost civilization types don't need to deal in logic. There are no accounts because Gubmint Spooks/Evil Academics/Whatever Church I Don't Like/The Illuminati are suppressing them, therefore proving that the records exist and I'm right. Wake up people!!!

Or something like that.

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DaveR

11/7/2016 11:01:58 am

That's actually a good point. Any literature supporting ancient ali9ens is proof that ancient aliens existed. Where there is no evidence is proof of a conspiracy to suppress the truth regarding ancient aliens, and is, naturally, proof that ancient aliens existed.

Clay

11/4/2016 07:07:04 pm

The Confesio Fraternitatis, the Rosicrucian manifesto of 1615, also uses language reminiscent of a description of the Internet:

Were it not a precious thing, that you could always live so, as if you had
lived from the beginning of the world, and, moreover, as you should still
live to the end thereof? Were it not excellent you dwell in one place, that
neither the people which dwell beyond the River Ganges in the Indies
could Hide anything, nor those which in Peru might be able to keep secret
their counsels from thee?
Were it not a precious thing, that you could so read in one only book,
and withal by reading understand and remember, all that which in all other
books (which heretofore have been, and are now, and hereafter shall come
out) hath been, is, and shall be learned and found out of them?

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Uncle Ron

11/4/2016 08:13:16 pm

Yikes! Now if only someone would invent the semi-conductor...

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Jim

11/5/2016 02:10:51 am

Bilbo Baggins leading the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra ?

Kathleen

11/5/2016 02:54:59 pm

Jim, you crack me up

Time Machine

11/5/2016 08:44:49 am

Clay sees Rosicrucians everywhere because Clay must have a pretty high active interest in the subject matter.

Rosicrucianism is nothing more than bunk and twaddle and meaningless nonsense the result of a prank,

That's quoting Johann Valentin Andreae.

Carry on holding a torch to Rosicrucians, Clay.
I am sure that you will find a connection somewhere between that idiom and Rosicrucians.

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E.P. Grondine

11/5/2016 10:35:47 am

Hi Clay -

I only took the nonsense back to Augustus and Alice LePlongeon.

From your quote, it is clear that it was created in the confusion generated by European contact with peoples who held belief systems that were not mentioned in their Bible.

Then the con men appeared to profit from their confusion, offering easy answers to the confused.

Given theosophist cult archaeology's wide impact today on society, a much better history of Augustus and Alice and their salon needs to be written.

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Time Machine

11/5/2016 04:00:00 pm

E. P, Grondine.

I suggest that you do some sober research about Rosicrucians,
The information is out there,
You appear to be ignorant about it.

Kal

11/5/2016 01:02:41 pm

Catholic did not originally mean 'the catholic church' but meant merely 'the holy church of God', as in the Apostle's Creed, which was Protestant. Rome took on this name under Augustine. Martin Luther took it on centuries later.

The Vatican is not an example of a NWO but one of an old one, the remains of the Roman church city, and it's own nation state. A modern example of a NWO would be the NATO, but it does not function as that.

Calling sects of different off shoots of Christianity names is not a way to win a debate. The trolls are feeding. They have fed. They will only have their answer in the afterlife they believe.

Discounting 2 billion people on the planet for one opinion amuses me. It shows as much laughable arrogance as it does total disregard for anyone that clearly could help relay the actual facts.

Go on an waste time on wikipedia, or the magic Internet box, getting your answers, trolls. It will make no matter. You will not convince anyone you aren't misinformed to the least, or perhaps even on some form of medication, and have come off it.

One of you trolls advocates such things as God was made up by ingesting drugs, which is funny. If religions were all the rantings of stoners, or mystics on stuff, they would fall apart like substandard scrolls.

They should really advocate more time to making their own YouTube rants and blogs, and not bothering this page, which is self defeating and will in the long run prove them totally wrong.

This is because if there is a 'big brother type NWO watching, they know, they are coming. Heh.

Always know who they are, and if you can't id them, they might not exist.

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Time Machine

11/5/2016 03:58:13 pm

Hey Kal,

Do you understand yourself what you are writing ?

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Eric Plumrose

11/6/2016 12:59:06 pm

'. . . not built to accommodate male genitalia . . .'

Time Machine. Still up for a blow job, though.

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Time Machine

11/6/2016 03:13:28 pm

FM
not
MM

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Eric Plumrose

11/6/2016 05:35:30 pm

1e-12

Time Machine

11/12/2016 10:29:48 pm

Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior, please have mercy on me for being such an agressive dumba55.

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BooJez

11/13/2016 04:30:34 am

I saw all the arguments in the comments and decided to write a book to make everything clear for you all. For the low cost of $29.95 plus S&H you will have all your questions answered...but wait...LOL JK.

I ran across this website by accident but I am glad to see that there are people out there calling out these Ancient Aliens theorists, if you can call them that. Nice work Jason.

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I'm an author and editor who has published on a range of topics, including archaeology, science, and horror fiction. There's more about me in the About Jason tab.